Kristina Laum

Seoul, South Korea

Biography

Kristina Laum is a retired professional wrestling valet and manager in Extreme Championship Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling. She used the names Kimona Wanalaya in ECW and Leia Meow in WCW. Laum was asked by her friend Raven to go into professional wrestling while she was working as a go-go dancer at a club. She made her debut in Extreme Championship Wrestling on January 27, 1996 as Raven's new valet under the name Kimona Wanalaya (a play-on-words for "Come on, I wanna lay ya") and she managed Raven to win the ECW World Heavyweight Championship on the same night. According to the storyline, Raven used her to replace Beulah McGillicutty, his former girlfriend and valet, who had announced that she was pregnant with Tommy Dreamer's child on January 7 at ECW's House Party event. Wanalaya left Raven at Massacre on Queens Boulevard on April 13 after he slapped her for remonstrating with him, causing her to vow revenge. On April 20, 1996 at Hostile City Showdown, Shane Douglas, with Kimona by his side, called out Dreamer to inform him that Beulah had been cheating on him. While Dreamer was wondering who the person could be, in which Douglas replied “it's not a he”, Kimona snatched the microphone from Douglas's hand and shouted "It's me!" Moments later, Beulah made her way to the ring and she and Kimona shared a racy kiss and fell to the mat together before Dreamer decided to date both women. The segment is widely believed to be the first lesbian angle in a major wrestling promotion. A career highlight came when she danced atop the ECW Arena, a moment that was used to sell VHS copies of Extreme Warfare Vol. 2 until the promotion died. Laum later left ECW and worked for Jersey All Pro Wrestling for a while as Kimona. While in JAPW, she wrestled Missy Hyatt in a series of mixed tag team matches and a steel cage match. She was signed by World Championship Wrestling in 1999, and she eventually debuted alongside The Varsity Club as the cheerleader, Leia Meow. This angle soon ended and she became the manager for The Jung Dragons, thus turning heel. She would interfere in matches with a flying bodypress off of the top rope onto their opponents. She also had a dominatrix gimmick and carried a riding crop. She used it to attack Pamela Paulshock after Paulshock had won the "Miss WCW" contest that Meow participated in on September 25, 2000. She was then attacked by Midajah and had a brief rivalry with her leading to a fight on the following Thunder during Mike Awesome's Lava Lamp Lounge segment. She also had a short feud with Tygress and threatened to cut her hair off. By the time WCW was sold to Vince McMahon, she had been fired from WCW along with the majority of the other on-air female talent due to roster cuts. She went to the X Wrestling Federation where she was known as Kris, a member of the X-Girls, a dance team that included Gorgeous George and Chiquita Anderson of the Nitro Girls. When XWF folded, Kristina retired from wrestling.

Movies

WCW Monday Nitro was a weekly professional wrestling telecast produced by World Championship Wrestling, created by Ted Turner and Eric Bischoff. The show aired Monday nights on TNT, going head-to-head with the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night Raw from September 4, 1995 to March 26, 2001. Production ceased shortly after WCW was purchased by the WWF. The debut of Nitro began the Monday Night Wars, a ratings battle between the WWF and WCW that lasted for almost six years and saw each company resort to cutthroat tactics to try to compete with the competition. In mid-1996, Nitro began to draw better ratings than Raw based on the strength of the nWo storyline, an anarchist wrestling stable that wanted to take over WCW. Nitro continued to beat Raw for 84 consecutive weeks, forcing WWE owner Vince McMahon to change the way he did business. As the nWo storyline grew stagnant, fan interest in the storyline waned, and Raw began to edge out Nitro in the ratings. The turning point for the organizations came during the January 4, 1999 broadcast of Nitro, during which lead commentator Tony Schiavone gave away the results of matches for that night's Raw broadcast. As Raw was taped and Nitro was live, Bischoff believed that knowing the outcome would dissuade viewers from watching the program. Excited by the prospect of seeing perennial WWF underdog Mick Foley win the WWF Championship, a large number of Nitro viewers changed channels to watch Raw, switching back to Nitro after Foley won the title. From that week forward, Raw beat Nitro in the ratings by a significant amount, and WCW was never able to regain the success it once had.

More info
WCW Monday Nitro
1995